Real Time Wine (@realtimewine), the wine review site that aims to take the snobbery out of wine consumption one short review at a time, is now available as a free smartphone app.  

Real Time Wine took flight on micro-blogging site Twitter around mid-2009, when founder Andy Hadfield began tweeting short, snappy and simplistic wine reviews. With more people contributing wine reviews in simple language, written “for the people, by the people”, Real Time Wine soon expanded to a website (http://realtimewine.com) of its own, but retained the 140-character long tweet format for the reviews.

Now Real Time Wine has gone mobile with the launch of a fully fledged mobi site and smartphone app.  “It’s a smooth, sexy and extremely useful mobile experience,” says Hadfield of the new mobile products. “A giant leap forward from the blog-style pilot we started with.”

The free and interactive app, which was developed in partnership with Prezence Digital and with support from AngelHub, will continue Real Time Wine’s tradition of taking the snobbery and intimidation out of the wine buying and drinking experience. App users will be able to browse short reviews by other, everyday wine drinkers, check prices of particular labels, create a profile, post reviews of their own, “check-in” to show the world what they are drinking and share it on their favourite social media sites. Interaction with the app will be rewarded with points and status, which will in turn earn users invitations to special events, meet-ups and other “cool stuff”.

“Most wine buyers are not wine experts,” Hadfield says. “The challenge of discovering new wine at the right price is so great that we tend to stick to the old and familiar. Real Time Wine makes the process of choosing, drinking and sharing wine easy. It’s a real tool for a particularly fun hobby.”

The fun aspect is also visible in the way that a wine is rated on the app. Users simply tap on an icon to add a “Yum”, “Hmm”, or “Yuk” rating. Those who are moved to say more about the wine can always check in and add a review. “The more reviews a wine has, the more reliable a rating will be,” Hadfield says.

Reviewers still have to stick to Real Time Wine’s original rule of using simple language. No snobbish wine terms, big words or jargon allowed. “Words like ‘bouquet, ‘compote’ and ‘sweaty saddle’ are just wine snob waffle,” says Hadfield. “If one of our users tries to slip in a banned word, we’ll gently suggest an alternative. We want real words from real people.”

Due to the drinking age restrictions in South Africa, users have to confirm that they are over the age of 17 before downloading the app. The Real Time Wine app is currently available for Android and Apple mobile devices, but Hadfield says that downloads will soon be available from other local app stores, such as Samsung and Vodacom.  

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